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RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP, AFRICAN VALUE SYSTEM AND AFRICA’S QUEST FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Ntibagirirwa, Symphorien
Ntibagirirwa, Symphorien
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The paper explores whether the African value system provides responsible leadership and whether this leadership could face the challenge of Africa’s quest for economic development. I define leadership and outline the cosmological, anthropological, and personal dimensions of the African value system and argue that this value system in itself provides a responsible leadership. Irresponsible leadership often observed in Africa is not inherent to the African value system. It results from the crisis characteristic of the shift from being to having that betrays African value system. The challenges of the responsible leadership natured and nurtured in this value system is to achieve an all-inclusive participatory economic development in which the state, the people, and the market work collaboratively so as to reflect what Africans are, believe and value. Drawing on Sen’s capability approach which emphasizes “agency” and “the freedom of people to lead the life they value and have reason to value”, I argue that this could be possible thanks to a public debate and reflection which would catalyse the inculturation and the democratisation of economic development.
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Conference proceedings
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2012
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With permission of the license/copyright holder